Forever chemicals PFAs

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its second annual report on PFAS progress, which highlights significant accomplishments achieved under its PFAS Strategic Roadmap to protect communities from the impacts of forever chemicals.  The report outlines key accomplishments under the Roadmap over the past year across three fronts– to restrict, remediate, and research PFAS.

Key 2023 accomplishments include efforts to:

• Make PFAS use safer: EPA finalized rules for new PFAS reporting, issued a framework for reviewing PFAS to ensure they are used as safely as possible, and proposed to eliminate exemptions for new PFAS and to restrict certain legacy PFAS.

• Hold polluters accountable: EPA has proposed to list PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under CERCLA, the nation’s Superfund law, and anticipates issuing a final rule in early 2024. This action would give the agency the power to improve transparency around PFAS releases, help ensure that polluters pay for treatment and cleanup, and help communities that are facing significant pollution quickly receive effective protections. In the last year, EPA also took important steps to stop PFAS polluters, including adding PFAS as an EPA enforcement and compliance priority from 2024-2027.

• Protect America’s drinking water and identify the scale of exposure: EPA proposed the first national drinking water standard for six PFAS in March 2023. Once final, this rule will save thousands of lives and prevent tens of thousands of avoidable illnesses. EPA expects to finalize the rule in early 2024. Also, to better understand where PFAS exist and how people are being exposed to them, EPA initiated nationwide monitoring for 29 PFAS at more than 10,000 public water systems under the Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule. 

• Deploy infrastructure funding to invest in infrastructure projects to address PFAS in water: Many communities need to install new infrastructure and treatment technologies to address PFAS in drinking water and wastewater. EPA is providing $10 billion dedicated to removing PFAS and other emerging contaminants – more than half of which is going to disadvantaged and underserved communities. In 2023, EPA distributed nearly $1 billion through the BIL State Revolving Fund Emerging Contaminants programs and announced the first $2 billion in grant funding to states, Tribes, and territories through the new Small or Disadvantaged Communities Emerging Contaminants grant program. 

• Turn off the tap at industrial polluters: EPA has taken several steps to use permitting and regulatory authority of the Clean Water Act to reduce PFAS pollution in our nation’s waters– including specific regulations to limit PFAS discharges from PFAS manufacturers, metal finishers, and landfills.

• Incorporate equity and environmental justice across the EPA’s actions: The EPA has worked to ensure that all communities have equitable access to solutions and to integrate recommendations from the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

• Advance the science: The EPA has continued to build the scientific foundation on PFAS through research and development. The agency is investing in research to fill gaps in our understanding of PFAS, to identify which additional PFAS may pose human health and ecological risks at which exposure levels, and to develop methods to test, measure, remove, and destroy them.

• Listen to communities and incorporate environmental justice: EPA held listening sessions with community members impacted by PFAS in each of its 10 Regions, as well as a session specifically designed for Tribal partners. Feedback shared during these sessions, in coordination with recommendations from EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and Local Government Advisory Committee, is informing Agency-wide response efforts and helping to ensure that communities with environmental justice concerns have equitable access to information and solutions.

Looking ahead to 2024, the EPA anticipates continuing its 2023 progress with several critical actions, including finalizing national drinking water standards for several PFAS; taking final action to list certain PFAS as hazardous substances under CERCLA; proposing Effluent Limitation Guidelines for PFAS manufacturers; issuing guidance on destroying and disposing of PFAS; finalizing new methods to monitor for PFAS in a wide range of media; and proposing rules designating certain PFAS as hazardous constituents under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The agency also expects to continue engaging closely with its state partners, who are actively working to address PFAS issues in their communities.

The full report can be read here.